Dante the pilgrim has gotten one answer out of Virgil about the nature of abundance and scarcity in terms of heavenly good . . . but that answer was not apparently enough. So he goes back for more. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this continuation of Virgil's lesson between the second and third terraces of Purgatory proper. As we leave the envious behind, Virgil offers us a lesson in the unending and multiplying faculty of love. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH...

Dante and Virgil encounter the awaited angel as they begin their ascent to the third terrace of Purgatory proper. They hear two snippets of song. They find the climb easier. And Dante asks Virgil to gloss two lines Guido del Duca said back in Canto XIV. All these things indicate the shifting the nature of COMEDY itself as we enter its middle cantos. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage about the climb to the third terrace and see the shifting nature of COMEDY's audience and...

Dante the poet is playing a very crafty game. He's been pulling out all the stops with two metaphors to help us understand the weight, meaning, and timing of the light . . . and then he redefines that source of light right underneath all those metaphors. And just as the poet pulls off that trick, Virgil also redefines the very terms on which PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, ended, as he undertakes a reassessment of "pleasure" or "delight." Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this key passage in the...

Dante and Virgil pass on beyond the envious along the second terrace of Purgatory proper. As we enter the first of the middle three canti of all of COMEDY, Dante is blinded by the sun, about as we're blinded by his increasingly complex poetics. These passages begin the brilliant fun of the second half of the poem. Dante begins to play with meaning, poetics, and metaphor as never before, challenging us and pushing us into a spot of disorientation, all the while bringing us to a spot of...

Having been accosted by two voices decrying the fate of the envious on the second terrace of Purgatory proper, Dante and Virgil begin to walk toward a stairway to the third terrace. As they do, Virgil, silent for quite a while, refocuses and reinterprets most of what we've read in PURGATORIO, Cantos XIII and XIV. He offers circularity in place of the linear descent so described by Sapía and Guido del Duca. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we see Virgil come into his own in Purgatory. If you'd...

With Guido del Duca enmeshed in his tears, Dante the pilgrim and Virgil begin to talk on along the terrace of envy, searching for a way up to the third terrace of Purgatory. Lo and behold, they're struck by two voices, just as they were when they got up to this terrace. This time, it's Cain and Aglauros, speaking on the wind. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we begin to conclude our time with the envious and encounter a Biblical and a classical voice to warn us of the final dangers of envy. If...

Guido del Duca reaches the climax of his diatribe: a nostalgic retrospective of the courts and families of Romagna. Where have the good guys gone? Is this Dante the poet's lament? Or Guido del Duca's? Does this passage tell us more about Guido's problems or Dante's hopes? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through a tough passage about historical figures from Romagna, many of whom have been lost to the historical record. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH...

At long last, the speaker in PURGATORIO Canto XIV comes clean and reveals who he is . . . and who his compatriot is. They're Guido del Duca and Rinier (or Rinieri) da Calboli. Now that we now who they are, we have to go back and reassess Canto XIV as a whole. Dante is nothing but cagey in the rhetorical games he's playing. He's demanding more and more out of his reader. And rightly so, given the complexity of COMEDY up to this point. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look through this passage...

Dante has been cagey about where he's from, using periphrastic phrasing to describe the Arno valley without naming it. It was apparently the wrong thing to do . . . because one of the envious penitents is going to pick up the pilgrim's (and the poet's?) rhetorical games and push them much further into fully metaphoric space that is also somehow prophetic space, a diatribe against Tuscan corruption that borders on the incomprehensible at this moment before the speakers are named in Purgatorio...

Dante has started a conversation with two envious penitents . . . a conversation he might not be ready for. They prove more than his rhetorical match. They also muddy the theology of Purgatory itself. Is that intentional? Or are we expected to understand their still-fallen state? Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore more about the two envious souls who interrupt Dante's journey around the second terrace of Purgatory proper. Please consider helping this podcast stay sponsor-free. You can...

Sapía has finished her amazingly complex speech with the pilgrim Dante . . . or has she? At the opening of Canto XIV, we're not sure who is speaking? Still Sapía? No, two envious souls, leaning against each other, almost gossiping about our pilgrim. And nothing satisfies envy quite like gossip. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this new thing: the opening of a canto in COMEDY in which unnamed (and unknowable!) souls just starting talking out of the blue. Be on guard. They may not be all...

We've spent three episodes with this penitent envious soul, Sapía. Now let's look at the entire interchange between her and our pilgrim, Dante . . . as well as the ways PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, reflects INFERNO, Canto XIII. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we talk about the increasingly complex ironies found in one of the most compelling souls in all of Dante's COMEDY. If you'd like to help support this podcast by underwriting some of its streaming, licensing, hosting, domain, and royalty fees,...

In the concluding moments of Sapía's speech, we find her in dialogue with Dante the pilgrim . . . who is both forthcoming in his confessional stance and also cagey with his hiding his guide, Virgil. She, too, is caught in her own rhetoric: getting what she wants but ultimately revealing herself as a soul who still has a lot more purgation ahead. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the final words of one of the most intriguing characters in PURGATORIO, if not in all of COMEDY. Please...

Sapía now tells her story to Dante the pilgrim . . . and it includes one of the most blasphemous lines in all of COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look closely at one of the most honest and blasphemous monologues in the poem . . . and as we grapple with Sapía's incredible skills in rhetoric. If you'd like to make a contribution to support this podcast and help me cover its many fees, you can do so at this PayPal link right here. Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH...

Dante the pilgrim worked up the courage (or the flattery) to get one of the envious to speak up on the second terrace of Purgatory proper. She does . . . and gives him both more and exactly what (or perhaps a bit less) than he asked for. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I work our first sight of one of the most intricate souls in COMEDY: Sapía. She's a lot more than Dante bargained for. Donate what you can or a small monthly contribution to help me cover the many fees associated with this...

Dante has finally come among the envious on the bare, bleak, blue-gray second terrace of Mount Purgatory. We've seen their condition: eyes stitched shut. Now for Dante's reaction. And Virgil's reaction to Dante's reaction. And Dante's ham-handed attempt to flatter someone to speak up. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we approach on of the most significant and curious figures in all of COMEDY. Dante the pilgrim will call for her in this passage . . . and she'll make her appearance in the next...

The second terrace of PURGATORIO proves a wild ride into interiority, into the complicated sin of envy, and back into INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first moments in which Dante sees the penitents ahead . . . and delays until the last moment revealing their fate: eyelids stitched shut with wires. Thank you for supporting this podcast through your donations. If you'd like to help our (or continue to help out) with all the fees associated with websites, hosting, streaming,...

Dante and Virgil make haste across the second terrace of Purgatory before they're accosted by disembodied voices, calling them to the banquet of love. Sounds great, right? Except there's so much alienation in the landscape and even in the poetry. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take our first steps onto the second terrace of PURGATORIO with Dante and Virgil. Please consider helping to support this podcast with a donation to cover all the various fees associated with streaming, licensing,...

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have arrived at the second terrace of Purgatory proper. As readers, we're not even sure what this terrace is about, although we can infer there must be more penitents ahead. Instead, Dante the poet offers us rather straightforward, naturalistic details, a complex neologism (a new word he coined), a crazy line that has many interpretations possible, and then a pagan prayer in the afterlife of the redeemed. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk into the...

Before we step onto PURGATORIO's terrace of envy, the second ledge of Purgatory proper, let's pause a moment to talk about the relationship among Dante, Aquinas, and Aristotle. We have to take this detour because Dante will increasingly incorporate scientific reasoning into his poem, changing its very nature, based on his understanding of Aristotle, which is in turn based on the work of Islamic and Jewish scholars from the Iberian caliphates. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this...

We've come with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, to the second terrace of Purgatory, the terrace of envy. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this initial read-through of the terrace, beginning at the first line of PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, and extending to line 84 of PURGATORIO, Canto XV. If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating whatever you can to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and web fees by visiting this PayPal link right here. Here are the...

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have a little ways to go before they finally exit the terrace of pride. In fact, Dante has to come to a surprising revelation: It's getting easier. And Virgil has to explain why: Desire is being purified. How? By erasing what God has written. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the interpretive dilemmas and philosophical quagmires of the final moments on the terrace of pride, the first of the terraces of Purgatory proper in Dante's PURGATORIO. If you'd like to...

Dante and Virgil begin their climb from the first to the second terrace of Purgatory but as they do, they climb up in an incredibly contorted and difficult simile that swaps around emotional landscapes before landing them in the song of Jesus's beatitudes as well as the screams of hell. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the climb out in this most difficult simile. Please consider contributing to underwrite the many fees associated with this otherwise unsponsored podcast. To do so, visit...

Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory. If you'd like to help out, please consider donating to keep this podcast afloat. You can do at this PayPal link right here. Here are...

Dante the poet adds a coda to his (fake) ekphrastic poetry on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He steps back and explains the very nature of the art to us: realer than real, as it were. Then he moves the passage out from its narrative base and into a moral lesson based on an allegorical (and anagogical) reading of his masterwork, COMEDY. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the last passage on the theory of art for this terrace of...